OotS 843

[MarkB]

Heh. Not even looking at narrative causality, there's no way that trap would have killed a high level adventurer. The falling block shoved him/her into the pit, not the floor. I used one exactly like it three weeks ago.

Yeah, I'm thinking that's a high-level pit trap, with added thumper to account for flying creatures.

 

[frankthedm]

I wouldn't be surprised if Familicide only killed those who were weaker than the spell's initial target. Normally that would be a good balancing factor, but with a high HD dragon as the first victim...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I am imagining the devestation if familcide was cast on my step mom...


to start off she has 7 children: 1 with my dad, 2 with her ex husband, and 4 from diffrent fathers.

the two boys (includign my half brother) have no kids, but each of the 5 girls have multi childern

daughter 1 has 5 children each has a diffrent father. 2 of them have children, one has 1 the other has 3 2 by one man, 1 to another
daughter 2 3 children 3 diffret fathers
daughter 3 2 children each with a diffrent dad (how ever 1 of those dads is also the dad of one of daughter 1's.)
daughter 43 children with 2 diffrent fathers
daughter 5 1 child

My step mother is 1 of 3 girls, and each of them have 3 or 4 kids also with multi kids each.


So step 1 kills her sisters and there lines, and her 2 sons and 5 daughters and 14 grandchildren and 4 great grand kids...

then the boom hits, and everyone related to them dies... So my dad and me and my sister- and the fathers all die... 15 men spread through 3 states die... then maybe there are half siblings too.

 

[Hussar]

After some time of reading OOTS more out of inertia than anything else, the storyline here has stepped WAY back up to the plate. This is why I read this strip.

 

[DalkonCledwin]

OK, so let me see if I have the way this spell works right: V casts "familicide" on me. As a result, my children die. But because my children "share blood" with my wife, my wife and her entire family also die, correct?

I presume this doesn't keep going, so that my wife's brother's wife's family dies because they share blood with her, since that would very quickly lead to some apocalyptic consequences.

The way I am understanding the strip, and the way I always understood the original spell was that it killed all people who had at least some of the same DNA as the individual upon whom the spell is cast. The problem with this is that within a single ecological system all members of one species (i.e. all humans, and half-elves as well as the elves that sired those half-elves and by proxy the entire elven species as well) have at least some genetic traits that are common to each other. Thus if this is true it would mean that a spell of the proportions of Familicide, that attacks the "blood relations" of the individual it is cast on, would ultimately lead to the death of all members of a given species as well as all members of any species that has ever successfully interbred with that species.

For example, within the Human species here on earth, it is a documented fact that all human beings can be traced back to a single female ancestor. So if Varsuvius had cast Resurrect on that single Female Ancestors Remains (after significant divinations to find said remains) and then cast Familicide upon her, s/he would successfully have wiped out every single human being on this entire planet. Just as a hypothetical example.

 

[Dioltach]

On an almost completely unrelated note, I just noticed that in strip 9 (Giant In the Playground Games) Roy refers to Vaarsuvius as "V-Man". Does this imply that very early on Rich wasn't so ambiguous about V's gender?

 

[Kaodi]

This may sound insane, seeing as we are talking about a comic about stick people, but I swear that drawings in the early comics are noticeably more primitive compared to the later stuff.

 

[Mercutio01]

This may sound insane, seeing as we are talking about a comic about stick people, but I swear that drawings in the early comics are noticeably more primitive compared to the later stuff.

I don't think you're wrong. After I read this post, I just spent the last few minutes comparing the 1st strip and the current one, and there are some noticeable differences. The depth of field is markably more effective now. There are additional details in areas like costumes. The mouths of people talking are more obvious. Expressions are more readable. And, the biggest jump, the backgrounds and scene-setters are way more detailed.

 

[DalkonCledwin]

they actually parody the difference in design in at least one of the comics where the more recent incarnation of Haley steals a diamond from herself in a promotional poster for one of the earliest incarnations of the comic...

 

[frankthedm]

On an almost completely unrelated note, I just noticed that in strip 9 (Giant In the Playground Games) Roy refers to Vaarsuvius as "V-Man". Does this imply that very early on Rich wasn't so ambiguous about V's gender?

No, it just means roy goes by the policy of; If you are not sure of somebody's gender, assume It is a dude.